As for ship life this week, we had the best time EVER. There were some really great, interesting people on board. One in particular was a guy who was very distinguishable amongst guests. He was very knowledgeable in photography so he helped me out with my camera. He was also a talented singer/songwriter so he and Laura stayed up late and played piano most nights. We also went on hikes with a few of the guests to Smugglers cove in Skagway and around the rainforest in Ketchikan. There was also a guest who successfully got kicked out of the crew bar. Also, this week was my birthday and 4th of July so we celebrated both. On 4th of July, the band played live in the crew bar for us, which was amazing. The party was actually put on by the Canadians because Canada Day is July 1st and they thought that it would be funny to celebrate on the day the Americans wanted to celebrate their own independence. The good thing about that is, the HR lady is Canadian so she threw an amazing party. As for my birthday, Laura was awesome, she got me breakfast in bed, had a mini surprise party for me and got the pastry chef to make this fabulous chocolate mousse cake for me. If you ever read this Laura, THANK YOU! At the end of the cruise, we had a little get together in our room to say goodbye to the band. We were a little loud, but we did not hear about any noise complaints so that’s good.

The thing that makes it funny though, is that the Cruise Director called us into his office on day 2 of the following cruise. We asked him what it was about and he said it wasn’t good. I went out on excursion and Laura met with the cruise director. Meanwhile we thought that we were going to get kicked off the ship because we broke a few rules the past cruise. Rule #1: no passengers in your cabin and no going to a passenger cabin – BROKEN Rule # 2: No crew in passenger cabins at all – BROKEN Rule # 3: Definitely No Parties – BROKEN. So lets just say, we were expecting the worst. As I got back from excursion, I got a text message from Laura saying…Big Trouble…So I start freaking out. For all of you who know me, I am the most straight-edge, follow the rules type of girl. I can’t believe it; I think that I am going home. So I check my voicemail. Laura says, “ Molly, we are in big trouble, I think we are going to get kicked off the ship – JUST KIDDING!”. Turns out, the Director of Entertainment on all the regent ships is on this cruise. We accidentally told him the wrong place to go for our activity only because EVERY other week we have had the activity in that specific place except for this week of course. I also accidentally gave him the wrong schedule because he asked me at an off time if he could have one. I handed him the one from the previous week without looking. Now, I consider these relatively harmless things that just by bad luck happened to the wrong person. The only thing is, shouldn’t we have been informed that the most important person in our realm of the ship was going to be on board and we should try and impress him? We were never informed of this so we made a few mistakes. If that’s the worst thing that we did, I think we are doing a pretty good job.

Enough of that, so this week I got to go on the Zipline tour in Ketchikan! So fun! I was way more excited than all the cruise ship passengers were. I was dancing to myself on one of the platforms because of all my excitement and some of the other guests caught me in the act. I would normally be embarrassed, but I think my enthusiasm rubbed off on them and they had a better time because of it. Go me!

I also went on a float trip in Skagway and the guide on that was HYSTERICAL. He is from Atlanta, GA and now lives in Haines, AK. Lets just say Haines is not the most interesting city (or should I say town) in the world. However, CP (the guide) made that town sound like the greatest town that was ever built. At the end of the trip he gave us his card. Everyone must check out CP’s website at www.cpglacialfacial.com ha.

The rest of this week was awesome. The kids we had in the program were really cool and interesting and I think we really influenced them a lot. Our Sea Otter excursions was extremely successful as well. We saw...
1. humpback whales
2. gray whales
3. sitka black-tailed deer
4. 2 brown bears
5. harbor seals
6. sea otters
7. puffins
8. bald eagles

Lots of sights. Also, because we are with Cousteau, the captain took us out in one of Jean-Michel's zodiacs. We went zooming around and i really thought that I was going to fall out at least 3 times. He raced that little thing around into fjords and around islands. We saw the strangest bird, the rhinoceros auklet. I will add pictures soon of that little thing. The pilot also went with us (the guy who steers the ship into harbor, who knows the areas really well) so we were with 2 of the most important people on the ship. I felt very fortunate and really cool.